During a product development expedition, a team of Ford engineers set out to test the Ranger Super Duty in Australia's Simpson Desert. The journey involved a fully loaded configuration, carrying essential supplies including water, fuel, tools, and camping gear to simulate real-world heavy-duty use. The team chose a challenging east-to-west route, which is more difficult than the standard west-to-east path due to the prevailing winds and the steep, soft-sand leeward sides of the dunes.
This image illustrates the vehicle's journey through the desert's complex dune systems during the product development expedition.
One of the primary objectives of the trip was to attempt a systematic count of the desert's sand dunes. While common lore suggests there are roughly 1,100 parallel dunes in the Simpson, the team found that counting them was a complex task. Because the desert features irregular humps and bumps, the team had to establish a subjective criteria for what constituted a 'defined' ridge. To manage the tally while navigating rough terrain, they used a 'ceiling method' where a navigator would count five dunes on their hand and mark the tally on the vehicle's ceiling to keep track of the progress.
By the end of the approximately 590 km route, the team recorded a tally of 797 defined dunes. The expedition also served as a test of the vehicle's range and endurance; despite the heavy load and multiple passes over 'Big Red'—the desert's largest and most famous dune—the team completed the crossing on a single tank of fuel. The experience highlighted the logistical challenges of desert travel, from managing fuel ballast to the physical difficulty of recording data while bouncing over shifting sand ridges.